Mental Health Issues

Mental Health Issues

Are you wondering why your mental health isn’t getting better? Do you keep getting stuck in the same patterns? Perhaps you are using drug and alcohol too much. Do you continually have relationship problems, either in romantic relationship, friendships or at work? Do you wonder why you are not improving or getting better? Here is a list of 10 reasons that prevent people from improving their mental health.

1. People seek out medication, psychotropic drugs without doing therapy. If you are getting medication, medication takes the edge off your feelings, but it doesn’t fix the thinking, the belief systems or decision making that you are doing and usually the effects of pharmaceutical drugs will run off. They also come with side effects that often require people to take even more drugs.
2. Staying in a victim mode. Staying in a victim mode is where you are often talking to other people about how you can’t believe your partner is doing so bad, how you can’t believe the way people treat you, how you can’t believe how horrible your parents are… You are constantly telling everybody about all these bad things that are happening in your life. This is where it is a difficult thing to start to look at, but all the bad things that we have in our life, we have chosen and these areas can be addressed through emotional regulation, learning better boundaries and learning how to deal with the realities and feelings that come from life.
3. Blaming others. Blaming others stops people from improving and prevents accountability. You may be blaming others for your bad behaviour, you are blaming people at work for how they treat you, you are blaming your parents, you are blaming your partner, you are blaming the weather, you are blaming society, you are blaming how much things cost, you are blaming the job market. Blaming stops you from taking accountability and being able to change things in your life.
4. A lot of people are trying to do this positive psychology and they do positive lists, very simplistic lists and trying to address these things. But when you are doing positive lists without addressing the thinking, the belief systems or other significant areas in your life, it won’t result in any meaningful change. Often researches show these things can make you feel worse if they are not done properly in combination with therapy.
5. Continuing to make excuses or rationalizations or justifications for significant people in your life. Often people who are stuck in challenging mental health situations are making excuses for the bad behaviour, inconsiderate behaviour of other people in their life. They may be making excuses for their spouse’s behaviour, for their parents’ behaviour, for their children’s behaviour, for their friend’s behaviour. These are often when people are treating them poorly and they will make excuses for them.
6. Focusing on your intentions, but ignoring your actions. People will stay stuck when they are often focusing on what they intend to do. They intend to go to school, they intend to get a job, they intend to lose weight, they intend to start an excercise programme, they intend to start therapy, but they never actually do it and they get really angry at other people when people start to point out that what they say and what they do don’t match. This will keep your mental health bad.
7. Doctor shopping or therapist shopping. If you do not build a long-term relationship with your psychologist, therapist or doctor, it makes it very hard for people to start to build a relationship with you, get to know you and see your thinking and belief patterns. This may be because you are doing some of the other activities that lower your mental health. You may not like some of the things that you are hearing and so then you are seeking second opinions or new people or blaming what the therapist is saying you are doing, instead of talking to that person, addressing it and working it out.
8. Using drug and alcohol. Usually people use drug and alcohol or abuse it to the point where they don’t know how to deal with situations and feelings that are coming up in your life. People need the skills to learn how to process their feelings and deal with the reality. When they don’t know how to do this, they start to use a lot more drugs and alcohol to block out those feelings.
9. Avoiding your bad feelings. Avoiding your bad feelings can involve any of the other ones, but basically you haven’t learnt how to deal with your bad feelings or reality. And learning how to deal with your bad feelings is as important as learning how to be happy. It’s a key to being happy. Because life and reality have bad things in it and the better we can learn how to deal with it, the more mentaly healthy we will become.
10. Making excuses for why you can’t start therapy. Often people will say it costs, they don’t think it will work or they are not sure how it will work or they are too busy or it is too far, they have to travel or they are embarrased of the stigma or the shame. All of these excuses prevent them from seeking out a therapist, building a relationship and really tackling a lot of these other ones.

All in the Family Counselling provides a place where people can learn to help on their issues and address all of these underlying reasons. All in the Family Counselling has been providing therapy for just under two decades.

Tammy Fontana, lead therapist, is helping people face into the realities of their life and work through very difficult, challenging things and help people to grow and get the life and relationships they want. She works with infidelity, relationship issues, sex and intimaccy, communication and conflict, anger management, depression and anxiety.

If you would like to learn more, contact us at +65 9030 7239 or email us at tammy@allinthefamilycounselling.com.